


After Haven

by astra_romaine



Series: Sent by Gods (working title) [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Red Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astra_romaine/pseuds/astra_romaine
Summary: After the attack on Haven, the Inquisition learns something about its Herald.
Series: Sent by Gods (working title) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813630
Kudos: 3





	After Haven

The last time Leliana saw her, she had been tiredly staring at a mug while the rest of the Inquisition celebrated what they thought was a victory.

The last time Josephine saw her, she was running out to man the trebuchets. An army of templars was approaching under no banner and a wicked snowstorm was swirling up. The Herald had drawn her blades and stood stalwart in front of Haven.

The last time Cullen saw her, she gave him a stone-cold gaze. She left the Chantry for the final time, and her hands kept clenching and unclenching. She knew she would die; he could see it in her hardened expression. There had been no comfort he could have provided, no promise of safety or vow of reunification. This was going to be the final stand of the Herald of Andraste.

The last time Cassandra saw her, her bottom lip had quivered. She couldn’t stand straight for the pain in her shoulder and the mark kept buzzing its displeasure with the state of her body. Irian had pushed them away, told them to run- get to safety- and Cassandra had gritted her teeth and followed the order. When she turned around for the final time, the Herald’s small frame was dwarfed by the creature approaching her.

That had been days ago.

The storm had only gotten worse, and the Inquisition was drifting ever northward. Patrols went out time and time again, but there were so few soldiers up to the task. Cassandra had personally led most of the searches, but as more snow piled up and they travelled further from Haven, the likelihood of finding the Herald alive was dwindling. At this point, all Cassandra could hope for was a body.

It was late, evening had come and gone, and the torches blew out in the vicious winds. Cassandra knew they would have better luck- if that could be said- waiting for morning again, but Cullen pressed on through the night.

There was no visibility- Cassandra could barely see Cullen only a few paces away- and the dark clouds blocked out what little moonlight there may have been that night. They were shivering and cold, and they had been expected back hours ago.

They had passed the spot where the Inquisition had last camped already, it must have been over an hour ago. There was no sign of any life besides their own, and they couldn’t afford to leave obvious tracks behind. They passed a bank of snow and Cassandra held her hand up to shield her eyes from the flakes assaulting her face while she surveyed the area.

“Is there something there?” Cullen shouted over the wind, “Over there- Do you see that?”

He ran ahead through the deep slush and Cassandra followed. There at the tree line, Cassandra thought she might have seen something too- something vaguely glowing green. She and Cullen collapsed to their knees and started to scoop snow away, digging frantically at the small sign.

“I feel her,” Cassandra yelled and started to pull something out of the crater they had dug. She had her hands hooked beneath the Herald’s armpits and she tore her out of the snow as Cullen unburied the rest of her body.

“Cass…?”

Irian’s voice was weak and barely made it through the wind. The Herald buried her face in Cassandra’s neck and stared to worm her way into the warrior’s armour, searching for warmth. Her whole body felt cold but her left arm was burning as if that part of her had a fever. Irian had torn off her armour and most of her clothes in an attempt, it seemed, to escape that burning in her arm.

Despite the darkness, Cassandra could see blood staining the lighter coloured material draped over her body, and she could feel dried, crusted blood where Irian’s nose pressed into her.

“We have to move her- now,” Cassandra ordered, “She is freezing.”

Cullen took his mantle off and placed it over Irian’s back. Cassandra pried Irian away and tried to cover her more completely. The Herald was dazed and pliable; her head bobbed with every jostle and she offered little resistance to any suggestions of movement. The Commander pulled his gloves off to give to Irian as well and the Herald smiled.

“Cullen,” she slurred, “you need these.”

“Not as much as you, Herald,” he answered sternly and scooped her into his arms. Irian groaned and tried to curl into him the way she had with Cassandra, but there wasn’t much warmth to steal from his metal plate armour. She eventually settled for hanging from his arms while he tried to keep his hands against her skin.

They ran back to the Inquisition camp as fast as the piling snow would allow them. All the while, Cassandra watched Irian’s hand swinging as it stuck out behind Cullen’s back. She could see a pulsating green light from the mark beneath the too-large gloves; it was a sign of life, at the very least, and she could not look away, lest it go out.

“Healers!” Cullen shouted, “Clear a spot!”

Suddenly the tired camp was alive. They didn’t get far past the outskirts of the tents before they were swarmed. Cullen laid Irian down on a spot of packed snow, and he stood back to let the healers work. Two of them were peeling bits of bloodied clothing from her torso and frantically patching up cuts while Solas kneeled with her head resting in his lap and examined her shoulder.

The Herald was groaning; her head rolled side to side as she tried to watch everything that was happening to her. She yelped when Solas pressed his hand against her left shoulder.

“Stop it!” Cullen warned, but Solas knitted his brow and a glowing spell uttered from his hands. He moved the spell over the torn and bruised skin and Irian started to say something. Her words were in Tevene, but it sounded like she was begging; it sounded like she was in pain.

Cassandra glanced to her side and saw Dorian looking wide-eyed at the Herald.

“What is she saying?”

The man shook his head and made a failed attempt to regain his composure.

“It’s… mere gibberish,” he lied, but Cassandra pressed no further.

Irian cried out as Solas finally looked up from her.

“Seeker, it is as if she has red lyrium inside of her.”

“Inside?” Varric asked, “Shit, you mean like- _inside?_ ”

The elf nodded and ran his hands along Irian’s collarbone, searching for more. “It appears to be growing. Perhaps not unlike what you saw in that future, Dorian?”

There was no response.

“Dorian,” Cassandra said, but the man had grown despondent and was picking at his skin while he stared in shock at Irian.

Solas checked the back of her shoulder blade and trailed his hands down her arm and along her side before massaging her neck. Irian’s eyes rolled back in her head and her begging finally ceased as she passed out.

Solas held her head one last time, then stood up to face Cassandra and brushed his hands together.

“It appears to remain in her shoulder for now, but I expect it will spread.”

“What do we do? Can’t we take it out?” Cullen demanded.

Solas shook his head. “You see the pain she is already in; she will not survive more tonight.”

“We still have to sew up some of those wounds,” a healer said, “The only reason she didn’t bleed out is because of the cold.”

“How does the lyrium affect our work?” the other healer asked as he started to turn his attention to the Herald’s shoulder.

“Look here,” Solas squatted and pointed to something, “See the point of the crystal? There are shards sticking out that you must avoid. Stitch what you can, but I suspect a healing spell will be all we can offer for this.”

Cassandra crouched to look. In the light of the torches and the fires around them, the extent of bruising and bleeding was apparent. There were scratch marks and bruises all over her left side. It looked like her skin had been torn off to reveal a cluster of little points on the front of her shoulder that caught the light and made it look like she was on fire.

Varric pulled the glove off Irian’s right hand and held it up to the light. Cassandra leaned over and saw bits of flesh shrivelled under her fingernails. Perhaps the lyrium had been… implanted… after Cassandra had last seen her, and then Irian had tried to claw it out as she stumbled through the snow.

Cassandra winced away and covered her mouth. Irian had complained of pain in her shoulder but falsely attributed it to training. The implication, now, was that the lyrium had been there since before the Conclave. The question was, how?

She saw Sera and Blackwall standing just within the circle of light, and Vivienne to the side of them. Josephine and Leliana had joined the group alongside several of the other scouts and soldiers. Cassandra recognised some of them as the ones who befriended Irian. Everyone looked weary.

“Can we cut this off?” Solas asked, and Cassandra turned back around to see them shucking off Irian’s shirt. The claw marks extended across her chest, like she had tried to tear her heart out, and she had bruises all down her rib cage. Solas lifted her upper body so the healers could wrap bandages around all of it.

When they had finished, the two healers and Solas started to lift her frail body and carry her towards a tent where healing herbs could be mixed, and poultices properly administered.

* * *

Irian felt a weight on her shoulder, but the pain had died away to a dull ache. Everything felt like a dull ache, really. She couldn’t quite place where she was, but if she thought hard enough, she could imagine she was safe back home.

The Qarinus sunshine barely reached her eyelids through what must have been a canopy of trees- plum trees, maybe. On market days, when they had to pull carts of crops into the city, the foreman would always let them climb the trees and toss fruit down to each other- and even the cruellest foreman would laugh and pour coffee with them while they passed their bounty around.

She savoured the sweet taste of the ripe fruit in her mouth and under her teeth, could hear the laughter of her friends, smell the fragrances of the salty sea air, and she felt the rough bark of those pink-flowered trees beneath her hands- no, those were the callouses of someone’s hand holding her own.

They were warm and she wanted to pull them into her lovely dreams of merriment. She managed to twitch her finger against their palm. The hand withdrew and found its place on her stomach. Another hand threaded into her hair and a warm kiss was pressed against her cheek. Whoever it was laid their head against Irian and tucked her further into their warmth.

She smiled, turned her head, and opened her eyes to thank them, but there was no one there. The sunshine was gone, and a cold breeze was all that brushed against her cheek. There was not a canopy of leaves above her head but the canvas of a tent. She must have fallen asleep.

“You need to rest.”

Mother Giselle. Irian propped herself on her elbows and gestured towards the fire outside the tent- where the Inquisition’s leadership was bickering loudly.

“Yes,” Mother Giselle said, “They have been at it for hours. A luxury they only possess because of you.” She lifted a water skin to Irian’s lips and continued, “We have seen our defender stand and fall- and yet now you return to us. The more the enemy is beyond us, the more miraculous your actions seem.”

“I am no miracle,” Irian coughed and rolled over to search for her boots.

“And what are you, then? Merely an accident?”

“Yes. Whether or not that accident is divinely ordained is beyond me. My faith has never carried me to other ideas.” She found her boots beneath the cot and started to drag her legs over the side. That dull ache made her limbs stiff and she was tangled in a mess of blankets and someone else’s cloak.

Mother Giselle watched silently as Irian stumbled out of the tent, clutching the patchwork of blankets to her body. The Herald approached the fire and Leliana snapped her head up.

“When I said you had done enough, I did not mean-” her voice trailed away and she lowered her head again “-I did not mean you could die.”

Irian said nothing and avoided looking directly at Leliana. Instead, she looked at Josephine, who was staring at the flaring red of the irritated lyrium in Irian’s shoulder, which was left bare to the cold wind in an effort to cool it down. They all appeared too frustrated with each other to look at anyone else.

Mother Giselle followed Irian out of the tent and raised her voice in song. It lifted the heads of those around the fire and brought others closer. Soon, more voices joined, and the Inquisition camp was flowing with the familiar sounds of a choir.

Irian had trouble understanding the words when they were sung, but she understood what it was: a hymn. They were singing a hymn for the evil, heretical foreigner who trembled before them, claiming divinity while wrapped in furs but otherwise bare. The weary refugees and soldiers knelt before her, as though she were worthy of any respect.

“An army needs more than an enemy,” Mother Giselle whispered, “It needs a cause.”

Irian felt a hand on her back and turned around to Solas, gesturing outside the camp. She looked back to the dispersing Inquisition and followed. He led her away from the tents and lit a brazier so they could see in the moonless night.

“Mother Giselle is wise- worth heeding, her kind,” he mumbled to no response, “Perhaps you should not yet be on your feet again.”

“Solas,” Irian said and stepped forward to pull him into a hug. He carefully avoided bumping her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her in return.

“I am happy to see you alive,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re okay, too,” Irian said and stepped back, “There are so many people still here, but I wonder… I already know that- I know Rowan… didn’t make it. He was at the trebuchet when…”

Solas nodded in sympathy, “There are many more, yet those who survived can only pray. You should know, the orb Corypheus carried, the power he used against you? It is elven.”

“Is that how he opened the Breach? And the energy must have caused the explosion at the Conclave? How did he survive?”

Solas turned away. “I do not yet know- and I am not certain how people will react when they learn of the orb’s origin.”

“How exactly do you know about this orb?” Irian leaned forward to look into his eyes.

“It is a foci- I have seen such things in the Fade- used to channel ancient magics. Corypheus may think it is Tevinter, but the Imperium was built on the bones of my people- our people. I cannot allow this.”

“Fuck,” Irian groaned and tipped her head back to look at the stars. Solas was silent. She watched her breath float away on the cooling air of an early Fereldan autumn.

“Solas?” Irian asked, “Corypheus… said something to me, and I’m not exactly sure what he meant by it.”

“You think I could help decipher it?”

“Er- maybe? It was in Tevene, but he said something about my loyalty, or my lack of it? He said he didn’t care if anyone thought I was the Herald of Andraste, that it didn’t matter if I betrayed him, because I could never serve anyone so well as I served him. Does he mean that I was a slave serving the Imperium?”

She was hopeful, she had to be. She was afraid of the other meaning those words might have. Solas looked at her and she began to see something dawning on his features. The flickering light made it hard to tell, but Irian swore he knew exactly what it meant. It was like he had figured out some aspect of her, and now rethought everything she had done in a new context. He looked at her with an unknown familiarity.

“Solas? What are you thinking right now?”

He shook his head and faced away from her again.

“By attacking the Inquisition, Corypheus has changed it- changed you. There is a place I know of that waits for a force to hold it, where the Inquisition may build- grow- it is called Skyhold.”

“Cassandra will be happy to hear you say that.”

“No, you have saved them. You will bring this news to them.”

Irian glanced at Solas, “Why does it matter?”

“They trust you, Irian. Let them.”


End file.
